Adherents.com: Religious Groups in Literature

34,420 citations from literature (mostly science fiction and fantasy) referring to real churches, religious groups, tribes, etc. [This database is for literary research only. It is not intended as a source of information about religion.]

"The priest, Berenger Sauniere, had in 1885 uncovered some documents hidden in the foundation stones of his church, which stood on the site of an ancient Visigoth winery dating back at least to the sixth century, and of a Roman mysteries-temple before that "

mystery religions

Greece

-445 B.C.E.

Vidal, Gore. Creation. New York: Random House (1981); pg. 54.

Pg. 54: "Hippias was close to Apollo's priests at Delphi. He also helped preside over those mysteries at Eleusis where Callias bears his hereditary torch. He is said to have known more about oracles than any Greek. He could also predict the future. Once, in my green and insolent youth, I asked the tyrant if he had foreseen his own downfall.

'Yes,' he said.

I waited for details. He offered none. "; Pg. 70: The cult of Orpheus has always been popular in the back country, particularly in witch-haunted Thrace. Lately the cult has started to spread throughout the Greek world... I learned the Gilgamesh story at Babylon. Once upon a time Gilgamesh was a world cult figure. Today he is largely forgotten, except at Babylon. " [Other refs., not in DB. Pretty much all of the ancient classical 'Mystery Religions' are mentioned in the novel.]

mystery religions

Greece

-445 B.C.E.

Vidal, Gore. Creation. New York: Random House (1981); pg. 145.

"Since the Athenian mob is still Aryan in its superstitions, few dare question openly the gods of the state. But, privately, they are either turning to pre-Aryan mystery cults or to such radical prophets as Pythagoras--or to atheism. "

"'Also it was when Rome had already become the world's first million-city that the Eastern mystery religions with their concomitant self-privation and self-mutilation took hold. You fell in behind the procession honouring Cybele...' "

Pg. 199: "...it was too lovely a day to spend locked in one's head debating philosophy. That was the mistake that some of the Pythagoreans, despite their understanding of the Mysteries, had made--to fix their minds so firmly on eternity that they missed the Truth proclaimed by this green and lovely world. "; Pg. 209: "'...I had hoped to teach you something of the Mysteries in which I myself was trained when I was young.' " [Other refs., not in DB, e.g. pg. 261, 360, 366.]

"The first day when Cynan came happened to be rainy, which cast a dimness as if this were indeed a crypt of the Mystery. A servant showed the visitor in... "

mystery religions

Roman Empire

500 C.E.

Garfinkle, Richard. Celestial Matters. New York: Tor (1996); pg. 16.

"The night before I left I attended the New Orphic mysteries in the catacombs beneath the Pantheon, then I paid my respects to Zeus of the Capital and sailed away. " [Other refs. not in DB.]

mystery religions

Roman Empire

500 C.E.

Garfinkle, Richard. Celestial Matters. New York: Tor (1996); pg. 91.

"...when the monthly meeting of the new Orphic mysteries was held. I had been invited to join the exclusive mystery twenty years ago during my first fling with Fame, and it had been a comfort and an assurance during the lean times that followed. "

"'Sir, for the last two years living here on Terra I have been Anglo-Catholic. I take communion once a month.'

Mekkis quickly turned the conversation back to the relatively safe topic of model airplanes. New converts to these native mystery cults could sometimes wax quite fanatical. "

mystery religions

Texas

1996

Leon, Mark. The Unified Field. New York: Avon Books (1996); pg. 31.

"'We are an ancient order, going at least as far as the Knights Templar. I personally believe our lineage stretches back to the pre-Christian era, even to the ancient Greek Mystery Cults, but that's not really so important...' "

Pg. 27: "'The Christians have a tale of a prophet called Elijah who went up to heaven in a chariot of fire,' I said brightly. As part of our education we had been taken to a service on the other isle. 'Was he an adept as well?'

Suona looked a little sour, and the other girls laughed. They had become accustomed to thinking of the Christians of Inis Witrin as foolish, if generally kindly, old men who mumbled prayers and had forgotten the ancient wisdom. And yet, if what I had heard of the holy Joseph who was their founder was true, they also had known something of the Mysteries at one time. "; Pg. 129: "...had gone off to a meeting at the Mithraeum--not a ritual, as those were always conducted at night, but some business connected with the temple. I did not know what rank he had attained in the Mysteries of Mithras... "

Pg. 192: "Everything the High Priestess did had such certainty--perhaps the word she wanted was 'authority'--it came, she supposed, from a lifetime of practice. She herself had come so late to the service of the Mysteries, she found it hard to believe that she would ever be able to move so that everything she did seemed part of a spell. "; Pg. 335: "'One of them is the Sword of the Mysteries, is it not? The blade borne by Gawen, who was one of the ancient kings?' "; Pg. 335: "'That also is one of the Mysteries,' Taliesin answered, 'that only those initiates know who are called to be their guardians.' "; Pg. 339: "'...The priestesses will tell you that I have shown her no favor, and I would kill her with my own hands if I thought she had profaned the Mysteries. But what purpose is inventing such a tale unless she had an audience?...' " [Some other refs., not in DB.]

"Igraine did not think of herself as well educated; she had not had to study the deeper wisdom of the Old Religion, or to go into the Mysteries any further than was absolutely necessary for a daughter of the Holy Isle. Nevertheless, although she was ignorant in any temple of the Mysteries, she could pass among the Romanized barbarians as a well-educated lady. "

"He took it with a grave bow and put it to his lips. Igraine, who had barely entered the Mysteries, somehow felt that she too was part of this beautiful ritual solemnity as in turn she took the cup from her guests, tasted it, and spoke formal words of welcome. " [Other refs., not in DB.]

"'She is not a priestess. What the Merlin means, little sister, is that he was living when the Christians first came here, and that he chose, and was allowed, to reincarnate at once, to follow his work through. These are Mysteries, which you need not try to understand. Father, go on.'

'I knew that this was one of those moments when the history of all mankind would be changed,' the Merlin said. 'The Christians seek to blot out all wisdom save their own; and in that strife they are banishing from the world all forms of mystery save that which will fit into their religious faith. They have pronounced it a heresy that men live more than one life--which every peasant knows to be true--' "

"'...The Finns have, uh, wooden shoes for walking on snow. They're wizards. Told me how to sing up a good wind, though it doesn't always work for me and, uh, naturally a Christian shouldn't.' They registered puzzlement, since to them he had just said that he was an anointed one; but evidently they decided he must be an initiate of some mystery cult. "

"Hence the sibyl not only gave Erissa routine leave to pray before the three images at the front of the cave--Britomartis the Maiden, Rhea the Mother, Dictynna the Rememberer and Foreseer--but led her past the curtain to the spring and its Mystery. " [More.]

"There seems to be a human fascination with secrets. Secrets and secret societies have abounded throughout history, some relating to entire classes of people, as with initiation rites for young men; some relating to religion, as with the 'mystery' cults of the Hellenic world, and some relating to specialized interests... fraternities... "

mystery religions

world

1998

Wilson, Robert Charles. Mysterium. New York: Bantam (1994); pg. 206.

"He had been especially fascinated by the wild cosmogonies of the early Christian Gnostics, creation myths cobbled together from fragments of Judaism, Hellenic paganism, eastern mystery religions. "

mystery religions

world

1999

Hand, Elizabeth. Glimmering. New York: HarperCollins (1997); pg. 259.

"A distinctly occidental face--whatever it possessed of Eastern Mystery had been drawn there with makeup and computer theurgy. In the blue-white hollow of his throat a silver crucifix bobbed from a silver chain... "

"'...Muslims, either, either; though Islam has become a sizeable minority religion in the Western West in the past half-century, the spearhead of its advance has been the descendant of a schism... I mean... the Children of X, who have constructed nothing more than an analogue of Christianity using their murdered patron as their Osiris-Attis-Jesus figure. They'll go the way of the mystery religions of ancient times, and for the same reason: they're exclusionist, and you aren't allowed in unless you fulfill certain conditions of birth...' "

mystery religions

world

2025

Stephenson, Neal. Snow Crash. New York: Bantam (1992); pg. 192.

"'...speaking in tongues?'...'glossolalia'...Pagan Greeks did it--Plato called it theomania. The Oriental cults of the Roman Empire did it...' "

"Such a sight! Breathless, Dukat absorbed the magnificence of mysticism and pondered the unrevealed science that made all this a wonder and a mystery. He felt as the fires had come for him alone, to make him believe. The Pah-wraiths were sending him a message of victory. "

He looked at Eastern mysticism. 'The Tao that can be spoken is not the true Tao.' "

mysticism

California

1971

Dick, Philip K. Valis. New York: Bantam (1981); pg. 161.

"'The Friends of God formed originally in Basel. Finally we entered Germany and the Netherlands. You know of Meister Eckehart, then.'

'He was the first person to conceive of the Godhood in distinction to God. The greatest of the Christian mystics. He taught that a person can attain union with the Godhead--he held a concept that God exists within the human soul!... It's a trans-Christian mysticism...' " [More.]

[Introduction, as author describes himself at the editor's request.] "Hobbies: drinking wine, playing all racquet games, hiking, contemplating inanimate objects, mysticism, oriental religions, astrophysics. " [Nothing to index within the body of the story itself. The story apparently takes place in contemporary times, in the Southern Pacific, as man encounters some alien lifeforms identified as Swarmers and Skimmers.]

Pg. 7: "I wondered if they'd heard the news about John Lennon. I wondered, then, what the hell I cared about Arab mysticism, about the Sufis and all that other stuff that Edgar Barefoot talked about on his weekly radio program on KPFA Berkeley. The Sufis are a happy lot. They teach that the essence of God isn't power or wisdom or love but... "; Pg. 8: "Why would anybody in their right mind care about Arabic mysticism? I asked myself as I locked up my Honda... " [Many other refs. to mysticism, not in DB, e.g. pg. 53.]

"Butterworth picked up a pen. He started doodling on a piece of scrap paper. 'Some people--computer people, especially--tell me I have a mystical outlook. I study Zen Buddhism. I believe in the unity of mind and body. Digitizing my brain, shutting it in a box, is not my personal path to nirvana.' "

mysticism

Europe

2096

Sterling, Bruce. Holy Fire. New York: Doubleday (1988); pg. 202-203.

"'...Over the years the quarter has become infested with mystics.'

'Penitentes?'

'Yes, Catholic extremists of all sorts...'

...'I saw God. God was very warm and caring and wise. I felt enormous gratitude and love for Him. It was clear strong Platonic reality, totally authentic, the light of the cosmos. It was reality as God sees it, not the fragmentary halting rationality of a human mind. It was raw mystical insight, beyond all argument. I was in the living presence of my Maker.' "

mysticism

galaxy

2030

Hogan, James P. Entoverse. New York: Ballantine (1991); pg. 144.

"'It was only after JEVEX had been up and running for some time that the first ayatollahs appeared, spreading notions of mysticism and magic. Before then, nothing of the kind had been heard of...' "

"'The mind of a mystic,' Paco says with unconcealed contempt. 'The mind of a monk, yes.'

'He's been a monk,' Elizabeth retorts, 'but he's been a lot of other things too. You can't pin him down in any one category. And I don't think he's as ascetic as you seem to believe. The Lofoten monastery isn't famous for vows of chastity.' "

Vulcans, of course, have their katras . . . a word no one has ever been able to translate with any degree of precision. Not quite a soul, not exactly a personality, more than a memory, less than a living being . . . I suppose one has to be born Vulcan to have any hope of understanding Vulcan mysticism. " [More.]

"I knew of Padma, as I knew the Exotics. I had seen them on their own home worlds of Mara and Kultis. A people committed to non-violence, mystics but very practical mystics, masters of what were known as the 'strange sciences'--a dozen wizardic step-children of early psychology, sociology and the humanistic fields of research. "

"'Aye, they brought a whole runabout with them. But that was because of something they did within the Bajoran wormhole--the only stable one known to exist, as I'm sure ye know. In fact, to tell ye the truth, Captain, I have my doubts as to whether or not it really is a wormhole, what with aliens living within it and all those . . . mystical doings surrounding it.' Like any true engineer, Scott said the word 'mystical' as if it let a sour taste in his mouth. "

'Oh supernatural influences. Why didn't you say so? No, I don't believe in that sort of thing. By definition, something is supernatural if it exists outside the laws of nature and nothing exists outside the laws of nature. Are you turning into a mystic?' Andorin asked it as if though he were joking, but his eyes narrowed with sudden concern. "

"But too much pressure, and it all welds together and you got a monster on your hands. I was thinking today--the old Nazis, they used to believe in the Hollow Earth and all kinds of mystical crap. . . . But their trains ran on time and their state cops were efficient as hell. . . .' "

"Helliconia's suns took on symbolic significance. Mystics remarked on the way in which Freyr-Batalix seemed to represent those divisions of the human psyche celebrated in Asian legend long ago:

Two birds always together in the peach tree:One eats the fruit, the other watches it.One bird's our individual Self, tasting all the world's gifts:The other is the universal Self, witnessing all and wondering. "

mysticism

India: Calcutta

1977

Simmons, Dan. Song of Kali. New York: Tor (1998; c. 1985); pg. 256.

"'But we have no hard evidence yet that the thuggees, goondas, or the so-called Kapalikas are involved. It is also complicated by the fact that various criminal elements often call upon a corrupt, Tantric form of mysticism, frequently invoking local deities--in this case, Kali--in order to impress their initiates or to frighten the common people.' "

"The ads for the earlier, more modestly titled book declared, 'Spiritual training that doesn't lead to supernatural powers is hogwash! The venerable Master will show you the secrets of his amazing mystic powers. See the future, read people's minds, make your wishes come true, X-ray vision, levitation, trips to the fourth dimension, hear the voice of God and more. It will change your life!' "

"I suppose Louis Manfreti will represent the Skitz clan again this year. I always enjoy him; he has such interesting things to tell, the visions he sees of primordial things. Beats from the earth and the sky, monsters that battle under the ground... Do you think the visions that Skitzes see are real, Gabe?'

'No,' Baines said, truthfully.'

'Why do they ponder and talk about them all the time, then? They're real to them, anyhow.'

"She was a non-practicing Catholic and a dabbler in feminist paganism. She was a dreamer and a pragmatist, a hardheaded mystic who used numerology to find her perpetually misplaced keys and pyramidology to keep her Swiss Army knife sharp. She covered her bases. ".

mysticism

New Mexico

1995

Sagan, Carl. Contact. New York: Simon & Schuster (1985); pg. 126.

"There were mystics from sequestered communities outside Taos who used psilocybin as a sacrament... "

Pg. 323: "Her mind created long strings out of this question, pulling in the Heisenberg Principle, Epicurus, a defunct philosophy called existentialism, the Rahvoli constants for neural reinforcement, mysticism, epileptic storms... "; Pg. 325: "...a story, evidently fiction, from a mystic book central to several Sleeper religions. A man caller Job had been looted of one possession after another... "

"Astonishment: old Schiele is a mystic, an ecstatic! No dourness here. no dark Lutheran vindictiveness. This is pure Buddhism: Schiele stands in the rich soil of his fields, leaning on his hoe, feet firmly planted, communing with the universe. God floods his soul. He touches the unity of all things. Sky, trees, earth, sun, plants, brook, insects, birds--everything is one, part of a seamless whole, and Schiele resonates in perfect harmony with it. How can this be? How can such a bleak, inaccessible man entertain such raptures in his depths? Feel his joy! Sensations drench him! " [More.]

"The mystical era [of what books he read]: Augustine, Aquinas, the Tao Te Ching, the Upanishads, the Bhagavad-Gita. "

mysticism

Nicoji

2200

Bell, M. Shayne. Nicoji. New York: Baen (1991); pg. 189.

"He knew I didn't believe in Macumba. But I thought of Sam and what I was going to be able to do for him till a doctor came, which was not much. Sam did love Japanese mysticism. Maybe he wouldn't mind Brazilian voodoo. "

"Cruise ships have... the worst conversation in the world. Despite this I was enjoying the islands; even the Mystic and the Amateur Astrologer and the Parlor Freudian and the Numerologist did not trouble me, as I did not listen. "

"Extraterrestrial mysticism was one thing; jeopardizing her health and the health of her unborn child was quite another. "

mysticism

Oregon

2011

Brin, David. The Postman. New York: Bantam (1985); pg. 176.

"'According to this book, America was having a cultural renaissance, just before the Doomwar. Sure, there was Nathan Holn, preaching his mad doctrine of super machismo--and there were problems with the Slavic Mystics overseas--but for the most part it was a brilliant time!...' "

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